This guide is for coaches — head coaches, assistant coaches, and anyone responsible for athlete development. CrewLAB gives coaches a single platform for everything — training, communication, video, attendance, and athlete development. This guide covers how to set up your team, manage your roster, and use CrewLAB’s coaching tools every day.
Creating Your Team
To create a team, tap “Create Team” from the home screen. Give your team a name, select your sport, and add a brief description. You’ll be the team owner with full control over settings, roster, and permissions.
If you’re joining an existing team (because an admin or another coach already created it), you’ll receive an invite link. Accept it and your coach role will be assigned automatically, or the team owner will set your role once you’re in.
Roster Management
Inviting Athletes
The first thing you’ll do is get your athletes onto the team. CrewLAB gives you a shareable invite link — send it via text, email, or post it in your existing group chat. Athletes tap the link, create an account (or sign in), and they’re on your roster.
Track who’s actually joined by checking your roster. You’ll see who has accepted the invite and who hasn’t. Follow up with anyone who hasn’t joined yet — these coaching tools for team management only work when everyone is on the platform.
Squads and Groupings
Most teams need sub-groups. In rowing, these are lineups (boats). In swimming, they might be training groups by event or level. In running, pace groups or event specialties.
Create squads from the Roster tab. Assign athletes to squads, and use these coaching tools for team management — targeted communication, workout assignment, and attendance tracking. Squads are flexible — you can change them any time as your team evolves through the season.
Roles and Permissions
CrewLAB has several roles: Owner, Coach, Captain, Athlete, and Supporter. As a coach, you can assign Captains who get limited leadership permissions (like posting in chat or viewing check-in summaries). Understanding who can see and do what keeps the team organized. See the Roles help topic for the full breakdown.
Coaching Tools for Daily Use
Once your team is set up, here’s how CrewLAB’s coaching tools for team management fit into your daily routine:
Calendar and Training Plan
Use the team calendar to schedule practices, events, competitions, and rest days. Attach workouts to calendar events so athletes know what’s coming before they arrive. Push notifications go out when you add or change events, so the team stays informed.
Build your training plan week by week or map out the whole season. Athletes see only the events and workouts you publish — you can draft future sessions and publish them when you’re ready.
Messaging and Chat Channels
CrewLAB’s messaging replaces GroupMe, email chains, and text threads. You can create multiple channels for different purposes:
- Team-wide — announcements, schedule changes, logistics
- Squad-specific — targeted communication for sub-groups
- Coaches-only — private channel for coaching staff coordination
- Social — optional, for team culture and off-topic conversation
As the coach, you control which channels exist, who has access, and what the communication norms are. All messaging is SafeSport and MAAPP compliant with built-in moderation tools.
Video
Capture video during practice or competition, then upload it to CrewLAB. Tag individual athletes so they can find clips of themselves. Add annotations or comments to highlight technique points.
Video is also a powerful tool for social media — share clips from CrewLAB to your club’s social channels to build team culture and recruit new members. Athletes can share their own tagged clips too.
Attendance and RSVPs
When athletes RSVP to calendar events, CrewLAB tracks attendance automatically. Over time, you’ll see patterns — who’s consistently showing up, who’s dropping off, and where gaps might indicate burnout or disengagement.
Review attendance data from the Analytics tab. You can sort by date range or by individual athlete to identify trends.
Workout Tracking, Analytics, and Team Management
Athletes log workouts manually or sync automatically from connected wearables (like Garmin). You’ll see training data across your whole roster — volume, intensity, duration, and sport-specific metrics like stroke rate or pace.
The Analytics tab gives you a birds-eye view of team trends. Daily Check-In data (mood, sleep, stress) combined with training load gives you an early warning system for overtraining, burnout, or disengagement. Use this data to make smarter coaching decisions — not just harder training plans.
Growing Beyond Coaching Tools
When your club is ready to add payments, registration, or waivers, an admin will create an Organization above your team. You don’t need to do this yourself, but understanding the structure helps. Your team stays exactly as it is — the organization simply adds a business layer on top.
If you’re also the admin (common in smaller clubs), see the Admin Guide to set up the organization layer.
Need Help?
Every page in this help center covers a specific topic — from Payments to Roster and Squads to SafeSport. Use the sidebar to browse, or reach out to us directly at info@crewlab.io.
Explore more resources to continue optimizing CrewLAB for your team’s unique needs.